Charred
by Chemical Ghost
Summary: Tig Trager and a pit of burning corpses. These are his chickens coming home to roost.


Content note : Violence, potty mouth, references to sex and drugs; as expected. Spoilers for 5x01.

A/N:

I'm not sure if I like this at all. Just a short little thing I needed to write after crying like a baby during the season 5 premiere.

-o-0-o-

Dear god the sky's as blue

As a gunshot wound

Dear god if you were alive

You know we'd kill you

- Marilyn Manson

-o-0-o-

Tig Trager deserves to die. This isn't a maudlin thought that a guy has after one shot too many; no, this is just the naked truth. With the shit he's done, another man - a man with any decency - would die, or turn himself in and rot in jail. Except that's not how it works for the Sons. He's the Terminator, and he cannot self-terminate. He does the killing; that's how it's always worked. At the end of the day, he's got responsibilities to other people - the club, his girls...to his boys; to Clay.

Clay. Oh, that one hurts. All the hardest things he's done, he's done for Clay.

He's in the Clay's new place. Clay sits on the couch, surrounded by cardboard boxes and emptiness. Tig sits down, and tells him that he's murdered an innocent again. _You made me do this...For what? _It's getting hard to believe, after Donna, that it was to protect anyone but Clay. The story he told at the clubhouse sounds fake and plastic, cliches upon cliches. But Clay deserves the benefit of the doubt. There is so much history that can't be thrown away.

"I was with you in the hospital every day, for three weeks. You should have told me the truth, Clay."

Clay looks old and broken, wheezing like an old man. Perversely, he looks a lot like Piney with the oxygen tank. Much less like the man in the old photo on the table. But then, Tig isn't getting any younger either. Wrecking that forlorn gray face won't solve any problems.

He will find a beautiful slut and fuck it all away, like he always does.

-o-0-o-

He thinks of the time he and Gemma almost fucked the pain away. The time he sat in a field, high as a kite. Best shrooms he's had, but the trip was so good it was bad. Fucking Donna, pretty little Donna, the picture of innocence, had to show up and ruin everything, haunting him with her big eyes and all he could do was throw himself at her feet. _I'm sorry I put a hole in your head._ Somehow it sounds hollow.

He's pressed against the car door again, getting his face pounded into a raw bloody pulp, looking into a pair of rage-filled eyes. It almost feels right, and for a second he's light as a feather, until he realizes that this doesn't begin to atone for any of it.

-o-0-o-

He's out in the garage parking lot, watching Gemma get out of the car. Her face is bruised to shit; her lip is cut. He's trying to...he doesn't know what he's trying to do.

"Gemma...Did Clay do this..?" He asks softly, like he might scare her away

He doesn't have to ask . He saw Clay with his change of clothes and the cuts on his face, and he gave him the benefit of the doubt. No, he asked Clay if he was alright. All he could think about was Clay shutting him out. All he could do was scratch at the door like a sad mutt. But Gemma...If only he could ever put her first.

"Not now, Tiggy," She says, tired. She's got no time for this. She's got her wounds to lick and business to take care of.

_She doesn't need you to take care of her, or to tell her how sorry you are. No, that would be you._

He can do many things, awful depraved things for his best friend and for his president, but not this. Not now. He can't give his loyalty to the man who hurts the woman he loves.

The universe must have a twisted sense of humor, because this is the decision on which it all hinges. This is what turns the tide, what turns everything inside out. If only he had swallowed his anger. If only he'd stayed.

He knows there was no way he could have ever stayed. This was meant to be.

-o-0-o-

He's in none of those places, actually. No, Tig is standing in chains, tied to a pipe in a train yard. A shiny black car pulls up. Inside is an angry man with a dead daughter. This time he's done it. This time, he's so fucked, because he's fucked himself good. Wounded animals are dangerous, and this one is out for blood.

The bells ring like the heartbeat of an anxiety-ridden animal and he feels the blood rushing to his head, exploding every with every beat. He knows, with a steely cold clarity, that this is where he dies.

Damon Pope asks him if he knows what will happen, and he answers with calm certainty and a belligerent smirk.

The blood drains from his face like cold fire, when the man says it would be too easy.

The gates of hell -metal doors in the ground - open, but there are no demons inside. Just filthy corpses lying in a deep pool of blood...and Dawn, who doesn't belong there.

-o-0-o-

"No...oh no...Dawn...Dawny...Baby? Oh, baby...Wake up..."

He's babbling broken strings of words, but she's breathing.

She slurs drunkenly as the gasoline splashes over her, and he can't make sense of it. Something, possibly words but more likely screaming, is torn from his throat as the sight hits him like a sledgehammer. _I'm so sorry, baby._ The words he yells are hollow, and sorry doesn't cut it. He's reduced to pleading for her life but his heart is sinking with the knowledge that there's no room for mercy here.

Dawn is burning alive. The flames devour her and the air is saturated with the horrifying sound. The fire consumes as she tries to claw her way out, and the nausea rises. Someone else screams, and it must be him, or some macabre parody. The sounds that come from him are sickening. Dead with futility.

-o-0-o-

He's sitting with his legs hanging over the corpse pit. The smoke is still rising.

He puts the barrel of the pistol in his mouth. The cold metal tastes like blood. The feeling of his lips around it is disturbingly sensual. Some people flirt with death. Leave it to him to take it a step further.

No, he doesn't deserve to die. That would be too good for him.

It's easy to blame Clay. The man's got his faults and loving him doesn't change that. He's a ruthless bastard and a liar, and yes, he's asked too much of Tig. There's probably a special place in hell for people like him.

It's one thing to destroy innocent, clueless creatures. It's another to send someone else to get their hands dirty, to see the wide fearful eyes and the cracked, bleeding skulls. But what's another cut on this numb, tar-black soul? Tar-black like a charred corpse. It shouldn't be anyone else, he realizes.

No one asked him to put a bullet in the back of Donna's head. All he had to do was get a look at the face. No one put a gun to his head and made him run a man's daughter over without even being sure of what he did or didn't do. He should have asked questions before shooting. He should have kept his family close. He should have kept her real close. All of this...it's on him.

He won't let this happen again.


End file.
